Beep Beep! Make Way for Awards

Y'all may not know that I was born and grew up in Oklahoma, but I did. And through the magic of Facebook, I have connected with many fine people I knew long ago.

One especially fine person, Jeanne Devlin, is the backbone and steel behind The RoadRunner Press, a literary publishing company "changing the world, one reader at a time."

Recently, two RoadRunner titles won 2013 IPPYs: Independent Publisher Book Awards! The Immortal Von B., by Scott Carter, won the gold medal for Young Adult Fiction, after winning an Oklahoma Book Award. And The Bulldoggers Club: The Tale of the Ill-Gotten Catfish, by Barbara Hay, took home the gold medal for Juvenile Fiction.

Thanks to the pleasure of my "day job," I had the opportunity to, ahem, read these books pre-publication. Both were a lot of fun, as were RoadRunner's new title for adults, Crimes of Redemption, by Linda McDonald, and Tim Tingle's soon-to-appear title, How I Became a Ghost.

These are all stories of Oklahoma, in all its red-dirt beauty (not to be confused with prettiness), sadness, humor, complexity, and diversity.

CRADLE OF THE DEEP

Marion Agnew is an editor and writer who lives and works in Shuniah, Ontario -- a little slice of paradise just outside Thunder Bay. Email her at agnewmarion [at] tbaytel [dot] net. On Instagram, she's @marionagnew